Char-Broil Electric Smoker Review

I know, I know, I know. An electric smoker? Why not just haul the oven out on the porch and spark that up? I realize the charcoal snobs are going to be scoffing at this and have probably already hit the back button to go look for more proof that only good Q comes from charcoal. I know because I used to be one of those guys. Gas or electric smokers were just outdoor ovens. But honestly, smoke is smoke. If you think the charcoal vastly improves the flavor, I’d argue that no matter what the fuel source you use, the whole goal is to have the flavor come from the wood and not the fuel. So if the charcoal is imparting any flavor, it’s probably bad flavor. I use the purest lump charcoal I can find because most briquettes are full of petroleum products. It’s not a charcoal smoker, but I can put smoke wood in and that’s the most important aspect of any smoker, right? The fact that fuel source will not impart any flavor means that the only thing that will is whatever smoke wood I choose. And think of it this way, most of the top BBQ joints in the country are running propane smokers.

So what are the advantages of using an electric smoker? What’s the benefit of going electric over charcoal? They say a picture is worth 1,000 words, so I’ll show the picture and then go ahead and explain with some words:

That interface above allows me to set the temperature of the smoker and the time and it will stay at that temp until the timer runs out. No adjusting vents. No adding more coals. No worrying about a temperature spike or drop. It literally is set it and forget it.

Inside there is plenty of room for succulent smoked eats. There are four shelves that were pretty tight for a full slab of ribs (I cut off three bones of that slab in the top pic) but the shelves can handle plenty of half racks of ribs:

There’s a glass door that allows you to see what’s happening inside without cracking the smoker:

I have no idea how easy or hard it is to clean the glass. After one use I could still see through the door, but it was pretty dirty. After I use it a few more times, I’ll check back here and let you know how hard it is to clean the glass.

But how is the smoke? It’s an electric smoker, does it put out a good deal of smoke? Well, catching the smoke rolling out of the sides on a windy day was tough, but I got this shot:

I also took a little video of smoke coming up through the smoker itself, which is another advantage of the glass front door:

I checked the ribs at about the 90 minute mark and decided to check on my smoke wood. All the chips in the box were black. It was still producing great smelling smoke but I decided to give the box a little shake to settle the blackened chips down and make more room for the new chips. I got more than 4 hours of smoke out of a box and a half of chips.

Before we go any farther, how much does this rig cost? This programmable electric smoker with a remote so you can monitor the progress of the cook from inside if necessary, runs about $300.

Back to the review…

One concern I have with the smoker is that it is so low to the ground. For a food blogger, that makes taking pictures a little difficult. It also brings it closer to the delicate fingers of my children. I was worried about them touching it as I always am when a grill is lit or on and they’re milling around. Then I tested how hot it was by rubbing my hand all over the outside of the box and while it was warm it wasn’t at all uncomfortable and that’s with it set at the max internal temperature of 275. Just to show you how safe it is, here are my 7 year old sons hands on a grill that shows 275 on the thermostat:

Well, the thermostat doesn’t quite show 275. For some reason this pic only grabbed the 27 and the next one got the 5F:

There was nothing wrong with the readout. The camera caught a couple of the numbers mid flicker that we can’t see with our eyes. Back to the point at hand (see what I did there?) A 7 year old boy can put his hands on top of this electric smoker and leave them there for his dad to snap a bunch of pics.

One other feature it has is wheels and a handle on the back to make it easy to wheel in and out of the garage as this grill is electric. Leaving it outside in the elements is not a good idea.

I found two other problems with the unit. While the temperature gauge on the device read 275, the oven thermometer I put inside only showed 250. I’m good with 250. I’m glad I validated the temp gauge though. Having the temperature gauge be off and not know it is bad. Having the thermostat be off by 25 degrees and knowing it is no big deal.

Also, I smoked these ribs for about three hours and no smoke ring:

They had plenty of smoke flavor but no smoke ring. In fact, these Double Apple Ribs were absolutely delicious, but I was disappointed in the lack of a smoke ring. It doesn’t really change the flavor, it’s just visually appealing. I will play with this and see what I need to do to make that smoke ring a reality.

Two other very minor concerns. It took quite a while for me to get smoke from the wood chip box. Just allow for that. I don’t have an exact number but it took close to 30 minutes or more.

Also, the unit has a remote and probe thermometer built in. Since I was doing ribs, I didn’t see the need to try the probe thermometer. But it has a remote that goes with it that I set on the instructions and planned on playing with a little later. I came back outside and the instructions were on the ground and so was the remote. The problem is my deck is four feet off the ground and the remote was resting on the hand railing another four feet up. After dropping 8 feet to concrete, it didn’t work. I blame myself for that one.

All in all, I’m quite pleased with the BBQ that came out of this smoker as well as how easy it was to operate this device. It’s going into the full time rotation of my grill regimen and will be used any time I want to smoke something without having to stand over the grill all day.

Full Disclosure according to FTC Guidelines I must tell you that I was given this grill by Char-Broil to do the review. I did not pay for it.

Scott Thomas

Scott Thomas, the Original Grillin’ Fool, was sent off to college with a suitcase and a grill where he overcooked, undercooked and burned every piece of meat he could find. After thousands of failures, and quite a few successes, nearly two decades later he started a website to show step by step, picture by picture, foolproof instructions on how to make great things out of doors so that others don’t have to repeat the mistakes he’s made on the grill.

32 comments

Hi Scott, I experienced similar results with my Bradley electric smoker. The flavors always turned out perfect but no smoke rings on any of the meats.
Amazingribs.com has this explaination:
the smoke ring is an interaction between a pink protein in meat named myoglobin with the gases nitric oxide (NO) and carbon monoxide (CO). NO and CO are made by the combination of carbon and nitrogen with oxygen during the combustion of wood or charcoal. The white billowy stuff has nothing to do with the process.

Scott,
Nice review on the electric smoker. It was brave of you to review the equipment given the snobbery against electrics.
I think electric smokers are very important. Although I am purely a charcoal guy at this point I started learning on an electric smoker because it was easy. There are a whole lot of other folks out there just like me.

The more people we get into the bbq game the better. If we have to start them out on electrics then that’s just fine by me!

This was bought as a gift for our brother in law who had helped us out a lot this summer when my husband had knee replacement surgery. He has used the smoker a lot since receiving it and we’ve heard nothing but rave reviews on every project. The only concern I had was that some of the reviewers noted dents in the product when it was delivered and several had difficulty with the door staying closed. Neither of these proved to be the case for our BIL and I was very pleased since it was a gift. I would recommend the smoker

Hi Scott, I am about to purchase either the Big Easy Electric Smoker or the Gas model.
I primarily like to grill chicken breasts, fresh salmon filets and burgers.
Which would you suggest? What are the pros and cons of each or factors that would suggest to buy one or the other??
Thanks Very much

I bought 3 of these and all of them didn’t work. The problem was all 3 could never hold the set temperature. I set it for 225 and they always would get as hot at 300 degrees. I monitored each with a thermostat guage and my idevice Bluetooth probes. It was very frustrating. Tech support even sent me new thermostats to replace and that didn’t work. I bought and tested all three thinking maybe the first was a bad one and then the second was a bad one. The first one was bought at academy (wifi), and the second wifi was bought at lowes. Then I bought the digital panel version at lowed hoping it’s just the wifi versions. so my question is, have you verified that your smoker can keep a set temperature? have you tested it and monitored it with a guage inside the smoker? I really would love for it to work as advertised. the problem is, the smoker never lets you know what the cabin temperature is…nowhere does it tell you that. I think that was on purpose.

I recently purchased one of these and have discovered that I can only get smoke if I keep it at 275F. If I preheat and get the smoke going, but then drop the temp down when I put the food in the smoke stops withing a very short time. What is the point of have a smoker that has adjustable temps if it only works at max! Have you successfully got it to work at lower temps? If so, do you have any tips?

I’ve got the CharBroil smart cooker and after today, I am sending it back. I’ve had a masterbuilt which I loved, but this thing is nowhere in the same ballpark. In short, it’s a pain to use, no damper, and I would have never bought it… but the wife was sold on it as an anniversary present. Don’t get this thing and get the Masterbuilt for less money. Hate it!

Disagree. You will have serious reliability troubles with the Masterbuilt after a short period. When it worked – it was terrific. Trouble was, getting it to work. I’d love to know *honestly* how your masterbuilt is still working.

You mentioned cleaning the glass being difficult, and it is! My father has this smoker and he’s been using a combo of vinegar and dish soap in a spray bottle to clean the window. It takes a little elbow grease, but the cooked on mess comes out.

I bought the Char Broil with the app control and it will not get the temperature on the app over 107.22 all day long and I dont get it. My barbecue place told me to smoke at 225 for 12 hours on a full brisket, with this it will not get hot enough to do that? is mine defective?

Would you recommend the window-less version over this one or does the window version help you resist unnecessarily opening the door to peak in? Is the extra cleaning of the window worth that convenience and the extra $45?

Good review Scott- I’ve had my Char-Broil electric smoker for about 3 months and have used it several times with no major issues. Just got back form a camping trip and used it everyday (Pulled pork, Pizza Fatty & Pork loin) I’ve used a off set wood smoker for years and just got tired of spending my entire day babysitting the darn thing. This thing is literally set it and forget it. Good info on the smoke ring as I also was trying to figure that out. If I had to make a comment it would be on the pre-heat time- Getting smoke in the meat from minute one is critical as we all know. My unit will finish pre-heating (about 30-40 minutes) and then take another 20 -30 minutes for the smoke to really start rolling. The first couple times I used the unit as soon as that pre-heat alarm went off I was putting my meat in- then it would sit for another 30 +minutes with no smoke. No biggie though- just have to plan ahead! I too recommend this smoker – (PS- I didn’t get the Wi-Fi model- The words ‘Wi-Fi’ and ‘Smoker’ shouldn’t be used in the same sentence- lol- (Actually couldn’t see dropping another $100 just for that option)

The first time I smoked with this exact unit I got no smoke for a solid hour set at about 200-225. The problem was after reading about electric smokers and wood chips is that I soaked them. Just throw them in dry now at 200 and started smoking in about 30. Don’t soak your wood chips in this smoker. Even though half the smoking community does. I just don’t think electric smokers get hot enough to compensate for the wet chips… Even though theoretically it shouldn’t be that big of a deal..

I think inexpensive electric smokers, in general, work just fine for the average backyard cook. One of the best briskets I’ve ever cooked came out of a small electric unit (can’t remember the brand we used at a friend’s place). What they give you is temperature control which essential to a good cook. I think you’ll be happy with either one but consider size before you purchase. Thanks for checking in!

Additional Post- 7 months into owning: Great Smoker- It also works great for dehydrating- We had an over abundance of chili peppers in our garden- I removed the stem-sliced in half-(left the seeds in and added a few garlic cloves just for fun) and filled up the fours racks in the smoker- Loaded up the smoker box with mesquite wood chips and smoked at 200 degrees for 5 hours. Afterwards peppers came out perfectly crispy and ready to grind up in the food processor for seasoning. Very spicy but SO Good! My mom named the seasoning Gun Powder- entire family loves it- a little bit goes a long ways!

I’ve seen it recommended to use the same cleaning products and instructions used for glass top stoves to clean the glass window. May need to ensure it’s cleaned off thoroughly or heat it up like recommended before first use.